Introduction
You’ve been working hard to build a great eCommerce store and you want to make sure it’s optimized for search engines. But how do you do that? It’s not an easy task, but there are some simple steps that can help boost your SEO efforts and get more traffic from Google (and other search engines). Here are 10 tips on how to optimize your Shopify store for SEO:
Choose a domain name that is relevant to your business.
When it comes to choosing a domain name, there are many factors that you should consider. The first thing you need to do is think about what your business is all about. Do you run a furniture store or an art gallery? If so, then the domain name should reflect this fact in some way (or at least not be too confusing).
The second factor is how easy it will be for people who search for keywords related to whatever keywords people might type into Google when trying to find out more about your business. For example: if someone searches “furniture stores near me,” their next step would probably be looking at local directories such as Yelp and Yellow Pages; these listings show up in both organic search results as well as paid ads on Google AdWords (a paid keyword tool).
Find the right location for your store.
The first step in optimizing your Shopify store for SEO is to choose a location.
There are many factors that should go into this decision, but the most important thing is finding out what is most important to your customers and what they want out of their shopping experience. It could be as simple as knowing whether or not they would shop at your business if it were located in a certain area, or whether they’d rather visit stores that have similar offerings but lower prices. If you don’t know these things already then it’s time for some research! The best way I’ve found is by asking shoppers who come into my physical brick-and-mortar location on foot (or through email). You can also try asking friends and family members who use Google Maps frequently–they’ll probably tell you where they go often enough!
Create a secure storefront.
- Use HTTPS.
- Use SSL certificates.
- Make sure your website is free of malware and phishing scams.
If you need help setting up a secure site, we offer our Shopify app development services with advanced features like:
Optimize product pages for search engines.
Optimizing your product pages for search engines is essential. You need to ensure that all images on your website or page(s) include proper alt text and keywords, making them easier for users to find in search results.
If you have an image that might be included in a search result (for example, if it’s one of the top images being viewed), make sure that it has an appropriate alt tag and keyword phrase associated with it. For example:
Test your URL on Google and other search engines to make sure it works as intended.
Testing your URL on Google and other search engines is an important step to take. You want to make sure that your URLs are easy for people to find, and that they work as intended. If you have a URL that looks like this:
www.examplecom/productname-1234-5678
Use keywords and keyword phrases in the URL, title tags, and alt tags of all images on your website or page(s).
- Use keywords in the URL, title tags, and alt tags of all images on your website or page(s).
- Use keywords in image file names.
- Use keyword phrases in the description field for each image.
- Make sure that you have a good description for each photo so that it can be indexed by search engines like Google Image Search and Bing Image Search.
Use schema markup in product URLs on all pages where products are being referenced (products are often referred to as “products” or “product”).
There are two types of schema markup: structured data and microdata.
Structured data is a set of standards that you can use to tell search engines what your content is about, like the topic or issue being discussed. It’s also called “semantic” or “schema.” Structured data has been around since 2011 and is used by many major websites, including Wikipedia and Google Search Results.
Microdata is used to mark up websites with additional information about their content (e.g., dates). Microdata was developed in 2013 by the Microformats Working Group (MWG), an open community that seeks to improve how we share information on the web through structured markup languages such as RDFa/XML-LD or JSON-LD
Use correct photo sizing to ensure good quality photos are displayed in search results . . . not too small and not too large.
When it comes to optimizing your Shopify store for SEO, one of the most important things you can do is ensure that all images are correctly sized and optimized. This is because each image will be displayed in search results on Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
To help you get started with this process, we’ll walk through the steps for optimizing an image for the web:
- Make sure the file size is between 5 and 10 MBs (megabytes) in size. Anything larger than 10 MBs may cause problems with mobile devices loading pages too slowly or even crashing altogether!
- Use the correct file type for each image: JPEG or PNG files are usually best if they’re used as desktop backgrounds because they don’t require much processing power from your computer’s processor; however, if you want them as part of a product listing then GIFs should be used instead as gifs tend not to have any additional overhead compared with jpegs/pngs when viewed at full resolution.
Use proper alt text for all images that might be included in search results (i.e., if you have an image that includes the text ‘Click now!’ but the user doesn’t actually click anywhere yet, then provide them with some helpful text instead like ‘Click here!’).
Alt text is a text description that accompanies your image in search results. If someone searches for something related to an image and you don’t have alt text, their experience could be less than ideal.
Alt text should be descriptive, but not overly long–this will ensure that users can easily find the information they’re looking for without having to click through multiple pages of results. The length of your alt tag also depends on how long it takes for Googlebot (the robot used by search engines) to crawl through each page of content on your site and determine what else needs highlighting by adding additional words or phrases after “alt” itself.
When creating images with captions or names, make sure these are unique per image so that they don’t overlap when displayed together in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Keep things neat and organized with internal links so users can easily find what they’re looking for within your site! And make sure internal links always point back to their originating page (which will help boost organic traffic).
Internal links are an important part of your SEO strategy. They should be easy to find and navigate, with the destination page being linked back to the originating page (i.e., if you have a Shopify link in an email campaign, it should always point back). This will help boost organic traffic by making it easier for people who come across your site via search engines or social media (Facebook ads) to discover what they’re looking for within your store.
Internal links can also be used as signals that indicate whether a product/service has been reviewed by customers online–for example: “This product has been reviewed!” The more reviews there are on products/services on social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook itself…the better!
Conclusion
We hope you found these tips helpful! Be sure to keep an eye on your SEO efforts as they’re important for both short-term and long-term growth. It can be easy to get lost in the minutiae of optimizing your store, but it’s essential that you also remember how much time and effort goes into making sure each page has been optimized correctly.